[geeks] SATA Drives and Delay Start

[Sridhar Ayengar]

hike wrote:
>> How can the controller tell the drive not to spin up if it spins when
>> given power, even before the controller has booted its firmware?  Am I
>> missing something?
> 
> Yes!
> 
> Some BIOSes had spinup/delay setting back in the IDE/ATA-only days.
> As the hard drive speeds improved, they could be ready before the BIOS
> completed loading and Windows would refuse to start.
> Adding the delay permitted Windows to load after the BIOS completed its
> tasks.
> An additional benefit was that IDE/ATA drives could also have a staggered
> startup to reduce the initial load on a power supply.
> Back in those days, I used Tyan and Asus motherboards at home.
> How the BIOS handled the delay (voltage delayed?), I don't know.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This was the gist of my question.

I already knew all that stuff.  My setup is much more complicated. 
Three RAID controllers sharing a single BIOS aggregating arrays made up 
of a total of 15 SATA drives on three separate backplanes.  I was asking 
how the controller's BIOS performs staggered start on drives that have 
already been provided with power.

Peace...  Sridhar